The finish suggests they’re moving close to Rush/Casas – Rush needed to get a win, and appears to have gotten a clean one here – but Rush & Shocker challenged for a double apuesta match suggests they’re all still fooling around. The new promo for Juicio Final airing last night did push the idea of past big apuesta matches, but still assume a cage until told different.

Shocker and Negro Casas were very happy after the main event. Rush, not so much. Mascara should be very concerned, Sombra & Rush don’t really need him now.

There’s a bit of a problem – Cavernario should’ve gotten 21 points for last week’s fan polling results, but someone typed in 11. That’s the difference between him making it or not. CMLL did appear to correct a mistake with Cachorro’s fan poll earlier, but did not clear up other typos. That 10 points would put Cavernario ahead of Dragon Lee by 6 points.

Cachorro would probably be advancing had he won. Dragon Lee would probably be advancing had he won. Cavernario won, which suggests he’s the guy CMLL would like to advance – but the way they’ve done it, it’s really completely up to the fan poll. If Dragon Lee or Cavernario finish the top of this trio, they’re advancing. It’ll come down to how they give out points for fan votes (which is very inconsistent) if Cachorro comes out ahead. Unless someone runs away with the poll, we – and CMLL! – will not be sure who’s in the final until Wednesday. That means they may not also decide who’s actually winning this whole thing until then – unless it’s already Hechicero. I believed Hechicero was going to make the final since the qualifying cibernetico was announced, but after last night’s results, I think he might actually win this thing.

Tickets for TripleMania will run from 144 to 1920 Mexican Pesos ($11 to $147.50). No matches are listed, just La Parka, “Myztezis” (sic), Cibernetico, Psycho Clown and Texano Jr. The description also calls it a “macroevento”, a term I like.

The show, on 08/17, actually is the same night as WWE’s SummerSlam. WWE is still on traditional PPV in Mexico and those companies aren’t going to want to put a second PPV on the same night so TripleMania will probably not be broadcast live. AAA could always try iPPV, but Konnan saying they were working on it earlier this year went absolutely nowhere and it probably doesn’t make any sense for that date for the same reasons traditional PPV would be a struggle. The show will instead air over a number of weeks on TV, which means AAA will not need to tape TV for a few weeks after TripleMania, which means that’s the ideal time to decamp to Los Angeles and tape the US show. We’ll see if it happens.

Psycho Clown wants Texano’s hair. It was a couple years ago when AAA (Dorian) talked about focusing more on the championships than the apuesta matches, with the idea that titles were easier to manage. They’ve gone a bit 180 on that.

CMLL on Fox aired two matches, so Volador vs Sombra should’ve gotten a great deal of time. CMLL on 52MX went the other way, again trying to force in four matches. Intro for Negro Casas & Rush started at 52 minutes after the hour; it didn’t go long.

It’s been two year since CMLL last ran this, two years since CMLL so delighted by having the fake Blue Demon win the Blue Demon tournament. There’s no obvious reason Azul isn’t in this one. Note Mr. Niebla is listed with the tecnicos (but then, so are Rush, La Mascara & Sombra.) This was a single elimination tournament in 2005 & 06 and a cibernetico the other years. It’s not said which way they’re going here, but those tournament years also had were “four” match shows and the cibernetico shows had five shows. Expect a night of a five minute matches.

Still no Mascara Dorada. My favorite completely false theory of the moment is NJPW accidentally switched the travel itinerary of Dorada & BUSHI and that’s why BUSHI was hanging out wearing a sombrero in the Zocalo yesterday. (Poor Dorada sadly eating rice in the NJPW dojo.) My least favorite possibly true theory is there was some sort of injury that hasn’t been reported. And the best completely random idea is someone should be checking to see if anyone happens to be filming intro vignettes in Los Angeles, just to be sure.

BUSHI not being used by CMLL is kind of strange, but it seems consistent with a change in the relationship between NJPW and CMLL. It may not be the result of some grand falling out – NJPW is working to get a foothold in the US and you can only fight wars on some fronts at the same time – but they’re not sharing talent as they have the last year. An expanded FantasticMania appeared to be success, but only Dorada has been invited back and that’s just mostly to round out the numbers for the juniors. NJPW will announce the G1 participants soon and I’d be surprised if anyone in CMLL was included. Kamaitachi has been in CMLL all year (and done fine), but the one month stints by regular NJPW talent have ended. I’d be surprised if Tanahashi or anyone else is back for the Universal tournament.